The Los Angeles Lakers have finally made a trade. They completed a deal for a Utah Jazz guard, but it was not NBA All-Star Donovan Mitchell.
Instead, they acquired Patrick Beverley from the Jazz, who ended up in Salt Lake City earlier this offseason via the Rudy Gobert blockbuster deal with the Minnesota Timberwolves.
Beverley is a solid pickup for a Lakers team that just needs talent at this point. To land him, they sent Talen Horton-Tucker and Stanley Johnson to the Jazz.
This is quite a fall from grace, value-wise, for Horton-Tucker as he was thought of so highly just a year ago that the Lakers wouldn’t include him in trade talks with the Toronto Raptors centered around Kyle Lowry.
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The biggest takeaway from the Beverley deal is the fact that the Lakers didn’t surrender any draft capital in the swap. That means they still have some ammunition left to swing another trade and round out the depth on the roster.
That puts Russell Westbrook squarely in the spotlight once again. For the Lakers to have any chance at succeeding this upcoming season, he will likely have to be on the move. If last season was any indication of things to come, there isn’t much to look forward to.
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Westbrook isn’t a good fit stylistically with LeBron James and Anthony Davis and if he is uninterested in adjusting his style of play, he will be doing more harm than good remaining on the roster.
With that in mind, Rob Pelinka needs to remain hard at work looking for some trades to make. Here are three trade scenarios the team should look into after acquiring Beverley.
